


Not the Endgame at all

by oddgit



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Person of Interest (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Crossover, F/M, Fix-It, Friendship, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sad, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2020-09-18 20:16:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20318875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddgit/pseuds/oddgit
Summary: Harold fell to his knees and ran his hands over the spot where John stood just a few seconds before. “John?” He murmured quietly, his eyes watering. He sat there in shock, staring at the dust scattered on the ground.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So. I had to exercise some demons after Endgame left me in tears... twice. So why not pair my two favorite fandoms together? I tried to follow Avengers:Endgame with my own twist of course.
> 
> Knowledge of both Person of Interest and the Marvel Universe is not required, but it will certainly help understand the more in depth plot points. 
> 
> Special thanks to M_E_Lover as always for everything and because I would have just shelved this months ago if not for her.
> 
> This story takes place at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. Right after Thanos snaps his fingers and half the population starts to disappear. Its also in a post Samaritan world in POI.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good.”

_ No. _

_ Not the kid. _

Tony turned to see Peter stumbling toward him. 

“You’re alright…” Tony lied, knowing in seconds the kid that had become like a son to him would fade away to dust.

He fell into Tony’s arms, his legs unsteady. 

“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go, sir, please,” Peter sobbed and pleaded, clutching on to him like he was his lifeline. “Please, I don’t want to go.”

Tony fell to his knees, the kid still held tight in his arms. The pain was too much. The ache in his heart from Peter’s desperate plea was almost enough to mask the sharp throb from the stab wound left over from the fight with The Mad Titan. 

“I’m sorry…” Peter said, looking directly into Tony’s soul. He looked up at the sky one last time before he faded into dust. 

Tony sat down, wiping the dust of what used to be Spiderman from his hands. 

“He did it…” Nebula whispered.

\--------------- 

Harold and John were in the Subway. They were watching the camera feeds of their latest perp, trying to decide when to give Shaw the go ahead to go in. “You ever wonder what makes people tick, Finch?” John pondered, standing up from his chair to go get another cup of coffee. 

“Well… Freud believed that the human mind was composed of three elements: the ID, the ego, and the superego. An interesting concept. Socrates believed virtue was found primarily in human relationships, love and friendship, not through material gains…” 

“Harold…” John cut him off. “I meant what do _ you _ think?” 

Harold didn’t turn around to face John, instead, his eyes were focused intently on his computer monitors. “Mr. Reese…” Harold said, his voice breaking in disbelief. 

“What is it?” John hurried over to his partner. His brow furrowed when he saw that suddenly there was nothing… no one… on the screen. 

“They just… disappeared…” Harold murmured. He started typing furiously on his keyboard. “Ms. Shaw?” Harold tapped his earpiece. “Ms. Shaw?” He raised his voice anxiously. 

Nothing. 

Multiple screens popped up on Harold’s computer array. 

_ Breaking news: Millions of people turning to dust. Chaos ensuing. _

“Harold,” John gulped. 

Harold turned around, the tone of John’s voice instantly alerting him that something was wrong and saw that his partner’s face was pale and sweaty. He stood up and hurried towards him, his eyes wide as John started to fade away. “John? No… No…” He limped toward his partner as fast as he could. 

“I’m sorr…” was all John could get out before he disappeared, leaving the floor of the subway where he was standing strewn with what resembled ash. 

Harold fell to his knees and ran his hands over the spot where John stood just a few seconds before. “John?” He murmured quietly, his eyes watering. He sat there in shock, staring at the dust scattered on the ground. 

“John…?” he whispered, again and again. 


	2. Chapter 2

“I lost the kid,” Tony told Steve. His face was gaunt and his eyes were sunken in. He had spent the last few weeks in space, running out of food and air.

After the big fight with Thanos, he and Nebula left the planet Titan, but the ship ran out of fuel. It was pure luck that Captain Marvel had found them floating through space… life quickly fleeing from him.

“_We _lost, Tony…” Steve replied, looking his friend in the eyes.

“Is… Uhm…” Tony stammered… Unsure of how to ask if his fiancé had turned to dust or not.

“Tony…” Pepper gasped, rushing to his side and wrapping her arms around him.

They led a half-dead Tony into the Avengers facility, heading straight for the medical wing. Pepper went into the room with Tony while a few nurses and Dr. Banner tended to him.

A while later, Banner came outside and faced Steve, “Who’s the kid?” he asked quietly.

“Peter Parker… Spiderman… Tony found him and brought him into all of this… and now…” Steve went quiet.

They all stood their quietly, looking at the shell of the man they once knew.

“How is he?” Natasha gulped, looking ahead at Tony lying unconscious in the hospital bed, Pepper holding his hand.

“I gave him a sedative… he needs fluids. It’s going to be a long time before he’s back to fighting shape. I don’t even think he’s strong enough to stand on his own. He’s got a nasty stab wound in his chest… but it looks like it’s healing well.” Bruce ran his hand over his face in exhaustion. “We need to figure out how to fix this. All of this.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment until Nebula stepped up, “I might be able to help.”

\----

Harold had spent the last three weeks holed up in the bedroom of one of his various safehouses. After researching everything he could on “The Vanished”, he had come to the conclusion that John was gone for good. That everyone was gone for good.

He was alone again and he was almost on the verge of giving up. The future was a bleak road he didn’t want to travel anymore. The idea of hope had become almost meaningless; if he dared to let his mind linger on that hope… it would start to feel like a cruel trick that he didn’t know if he’d be able to live through.

His grief was like the ocean. It came in waves, engulfed and overwhelmed him.

He’d read on one of the government websites he’d hacked that some form of alien life was suspect. That the Avengers had failed to save everyone.

Just around half the world’s population was gone, turned to dust before anyone even knew what was going on.

He had spent two days straight on the computer. He’d gotten to the point where his body rebelled against him and he ended up passing out on his way to the bathroom. He woke up and for a moment, he’d thought that it was all just a terrible, terrible nightmare. But once he fully woke up… John, Sameen, and so many others were still gone.

Harold was watching TV for any more information when a news broadcast popped up with breaking news.

_Presumed dead billionaire and Iron Man; Tony Stark returns to New York. He is said to be in critical condition. The remaining Avengers still remain unheard from. What do we do next? _

Harold sat up and looked at the picture displayed of his old friend from his days at MIT.

Old _friend_ was a nice way of putting it. Tony and Harold had never really gotten along. And when Tony decided to weaponize his father’s company solely for monetary gain… Harold never spoke to him again.

But Tony was Iron Man.

He was an Avenger.

If anyone could get John back… get everyone back... it was them…

He stood up, debating on whether or not he was really going to do this. If he was really going to go upstate to the Avengers Facility and beg Tony Stark to bring his partner back to him.

The loneliness was eating him alive, swallowing every ounce of hope he had to spare.

He had _nothing_ left.

There was no reason to live except the fact that he would feel overwhelmingly guilty to leave Bear with Detective Fusco.

He hadn't talked to The Machine since that day. Too upset that they had failed to save their biggest, and most important number yet.

Harold’s phone buzzed. It was an address to a building upstate. Harold knew the address. He had researched it in his initial stages of grief, trying desperately to find some way to bring his partner back.

It was the address to the Avengers facility... Where Tony Stark was more than likely being held while he recuperated.

“Oh… What the hell…” He sighed, standing up to get dressed. “There’s no other choice. I have to try.”

\----

_“Nice shot, Lee. Now just make sure you follow through and it'll hit the top corner every time,” Fusco said as he patted him on the shoulder, skating alongside his son on the ice rink. They were at hockey practice. _

_Fusco turned around to check on a few of the other players when he noticed some of them were missing. _

_There was odd-looking dust on the rink too. Or was it some kind of dirt? _

_He looked around, the remaining players on his team all just stood there in their spots, in shock. _

_“Dad? Where'd they go?” Lee asked._

_“They just… Just… Disappeared…” His assistant coach gasped. _

_“Dad?” Lee croaked, his voice breaking. _

_Fusco turned around to answer his son, but when he did, there was no one there. _

_“Lee?” Fusco's eyes went wide and his heart started to beat harder in his chest. “Lee! Stop messing around!” He skated across the rink searching for his kid, his breath coming short now. “Lee!” he frantically yelled once more, even though he knew it was useless._

_******_

_He ran down the steps to the subway, leaving his car running on the sidewalk. “Glasses! Sunshine!” he yelled throughout the dark and eerily quiet underground refuge. _

_He received no answer. When he searched the train car, he found Harold sitting with his back against the wall, his head in his hands. _

_“Glasses, where's John?”_

_ Harold looked up with puffy red eyes and shook his head numbly. _

_“No… No…!” Fusco slammed his hand against the side of the train car, “What the hell is going on! How could your supercomputer not have seen this coming!” Fusco's vision was whiting out and his chest was starting to ache, “How!” He picked Harold up roughly by the lapels of his suit, fisting the expensive fabric in his hands._

_Harold winced, more tears running down his cheeks, “I don't know…”_

_Fusco suddenly came to his senses and let go of his friend. “I'm sorry…” He stumbled backwards onto one of the train seats, “Lee, he's… gone…” Fusco put his head in his hands._

_Harold sat down next to him and put his arm around the larger man, “I'm going to fix this detective. We'll get them back. We have to.”_

_\--- _

Harold limped up to the enormous, seemingly never-ending building with a giant silver ‘A’ on it. To his surprise, he was detained by a large hologram of Steve Rodgers, better known as Captain America. Harold swallowed nervously.

“Who are you?” the image asked.

“I’m uhm…” Harold’s sweaty hand gripped the handle of his briefcase a little tighter. “My name is Harold Wren… I’m here to see Tony Stark.”

The Captain’s eyes narrowed as he took in the appearance of the small, timid man standing in front of him. “Please leave. Tony isn’t here.”

“No, please wait…” Harold pleaded as the hologram disappeared. He lowered his head in defeat standing there feeling like a fool. “What was I thinking…” he chastised himself angrily.

He turned and started to walk away when a familiar voice came overhead, “_Long time no see, Harold. Sorry about the guard dog. Door’s unlocked. Come on in_.” Harold would know that sarcastic, irritating tone anywhere.

_Tony Stark._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter explains a good amount if you haven't seen the Avengers movies.

Harold didn’t know what to expect when he saw Tony again, but this was certainly not it. He was shocked by the scene when he entered the room.

Stark was lying in a hospital bed, skin and bones, on multiple IV drips, and could hardly keep his eyes open. Steve was sitting in a chair by his bed, his legs crossed casually while he sized Harold up.

“Let me guess, this isn’t purely a social call?” Tony mused, looking at his old friend.

“Not particularly…” Harold dove right in without preamble, there was no time to lose. “When everyone… vanished…” Harold paused just briefly, and cleared his throat. The memory of John just disintegrating into thin air was surreal and painful to recall. “I lost someone close to me… Someone I couldn’t stand to lose.”

Tony scoffed, “You and me both genius.”

“Tony…” Steve reprimanded. “Ignore him,” he said to Harold.

“As I was saying…” Harold hurried to explain, “I know, at least I hope, that you’re all probably trying to fix this… and I think I can help,” Harold opened his hard-shell computer case. “You know of the program ‘Northern Lights’ that came out a few years ago?”

“You built it. With Nathan. Yes, I know,” Tony sat up some. “Are you trying to tell me that your AI might be able to help us bring everyone back from extinction?” Tony laughed dismissively. “I don’t think so.” Harold had always considered himself to be somewhat of a pacifist, but sitting here, he very much wanted to punch Tony is the face. How could he be so... lost.

Steve stood up and stared at his friend, “I thought you were the only one who could build artificial intelligence?”

“Harold always was a better coder than me. But he has too big a heart.” Tony pressed his pain medication button. “Now if you two will excuse me. I would like to take a nap. There’s no bringing them back, Harold. Go home and move on.”

Harold was rendered speechless by Stark's quick dismissal and just stood there, staring, at the shell of the man he used to know. He hadn’t really known what to expect or what he’d be walking into, but by all signs it seemed that Tony Stark was not to be relied upon to potentially repair what had been lost.

Steve glared at Tony and got up to lead Harold out of the room. “Sorry about that… he hasn’t quite been the same since… well, ya know…”

Harold got hold of himself and scoffed, “He seems just the same to me.” He closed up his computer case irritably. “Look. It was obviously a mistake coming here. I should have expected it even after all this time. I should go.”

Steve slid in front of him before he got far, “Hey… hey… Just because Tony said no, doesn’t mean the rest of us are opposed to whatever you may have up your sleeve.”

\---

“So we're really just supposed to believe this guy? Who is he anyway?” Natasha asked skeptically.

“He knew Tony from MIT. The guy's got his stuff together,” Steve answered looking on with Nat. They had Harold sitting in one of the conference rooms, observing him while they were trying to decide what to do. 

“Stark said he's for real?” Thor asked.

“He said he's smarter than Tony himself… And you know how much that had to have bothered Tony to even admit that,” Steve chuckled and rolled his eyes.

Harold exited the room they had him in, sick of waiting. “Listen. I know you all have much better things to do with your time being superheroes and everything… But I came here because I thought I could help. I _know_ I can help actually.” Harold swallowed hard, “I lost people I care about very much. I know some of you probably did too. So are we going to do this or not?”

Steve smiled and looked at Nat and the others, “Well. Tell us what you have up your sleeve then, Harold.”

They all converged into the conference room where Harold had set up his equipment. The remaining Avengers; Steve, Banner, Natasha, Rhodey, Thor, Carol, Rocket, and Nebula sat around the table.

“So. When everyone vanished there was a massive power surge of cosmic activity that originated in Africa. Now I don't know precisely what happened… Or exactly where it was…” Harold started.

All the others looked around at each other, clearly impressed by what Harold had managed to figure out so far.

Steve cleared his throat and sat up in his chair, “Wakanda… The African village. That's where it was. Thanos, a big purple alien, went on a planet wrecking spree to get these things called the infinity stones. They've been around since the dawn of time. The Big Bang sent the six elemental stones scattered across the universe. They each control an essential aspect of existence. 

"Space, Time, Reality, Mind, Power, and Soul. They are most powerful things in the universe, especially when combined. He believed that the universe was overpopulated and wanted to take matters in his own hands to correct _‘the problem’_. When he managed to get all the stones, he became the most powerful being in the universe, snapped his fingers and…”

“Poof. Half the universe’s population began to disappear,” Rocket spoke up.

“Wait a minute… You're a _talking_ raccoon…?” Harold said incredulously.

“We just told you _that_ devastating piece of information and you're worried about the fact that I'm a talking raccoon…? Boy you're in for a rude awakening here, buddy.” Rocket scoffed and shook his head.

“Okay, okay.” Steve stood up. “So when he snapped his fingers, he created cosmic activity. Only makes sense. What does that have to do with anything?”

“That's where it gets interesting…” Harold’s hands flew over his computer keyboard and in almost an instant the information popped up on the screen.

“The same cosmic activity happened again yesterday. The problem is, I don't know where it originated. My machine only detected it because the space station was effected.”

“Your Machine?” Rhodey asked dubiously. “Wait a second. Are you talking about, ‘_The Machine_…?’”

“Yes, Rhodey. Harold here and his friend Nathan Ingram began building it in 2001, after the towers fell,” Tony interjected, surprising everyone in the room when he rolled himself inside in a wheelchair.

Rhodes stood up and walked over to Harold, looking him in the eye. “Impressive. Been on a few missions myself that have saved thousands with that intelligence. Thank you.” He held out his hand to shake Harold's.

“You're welcome…” Harold replied modestly.

“Now, where were we?” Tony asked.

“Your friend here might have an idea of where Thanos is.” Steve sat back down in his chair and waited for Stark's typical satirical response.

“Oh really… and what are we gonna do? Go beat him now? Hah,” Tony stood up unsteadily, outraged and slammed his fist down on the table. “I remember tellin’ all of ya, alive and otherwise, that we needed a pseudo armor around the world! But you didn’t like that, did ya, Cap?”

“Tony, I need you to calm down…” Steve said quietly.

Tony ripped the IV out of his arm. “Well I needed you, and you weren’t there. It’s too late, buddy. I said we’d lose… and you said we’d do that together too.” Tony walked in front up Steve, “Well guess what? We lost and you weren’t there. But I guess this is what we do, eh? Our best work after the fact. We’re the Avengers… not the Pre-vengers.”

“Tony, we might be able to fix this… just…” Rhodey stepped in and put his arm on Tony’s shoulder.

“You idiots saw what he did to us!” he exclaimed, almost falling to the floor, too weak to stand, “You know what, when you see him…” Tony ripped off the new nano-tech arc reactor from his chest and slammed it down in front of Steve, “Put that on and you hide. Because he'll kill you… He'll kill all of us…” Tony suddenly fell to the floor, exhaustion overwhelming him.

Steve and Rhodes hurried over and picked him up, getting him back into his chair. Rhodes wheeled him out of the room and back in Dr. Banner's capable hands. Steve walked back to the group and took Harold aside. “We might be able to find out where that activity came from… Give us your computer… We'll see what we can do.” Steve reached for it.

Harold’s grip tightened possessively on the laptop and pulled away on reflex. “I don’t … trust this with just anyone… I'd, very much like to help, _personally_.”

“Harold. You seem like a nice guy and all… But we're talking about an extremely dangerous alien life form here… This guy threw the God of Thunder to the side like he was nothing… they don’t come any deadlier than him.”

“Steve… Sir… Captain…” Harold stuttered, “I lost people who I cared for very deeply… The only people that cared for me… There’s nothing left for me if I can’t get him… them… back… So I'd very much like to help you,” he implored, “_Please_.”

Steve smiled and patted Harold on the shoulder, “I think I'm going to like you, Harold.”


	4. Chapter 4

_“You have my respect, Stark. When I’m done… half of humanity will be left alive…” Thanos said, his hand sprawled on top of Tony’s head, his other hand holding the sword piercing through Tony’s chest. “I hope they remember you…” He powered up his infinity gauntlet, readying to decimate Tony in a matter of seconds. _

_“Stop…” Dr. Strange gasped. “Spare his life… and I will give you the stone…” _

_“No tricks?” Thanos asked, pondering the idea._

_“Don’t…” _

“Don’t!” Tony gasped, his eyes flying open. He was drenched in sweat, thrashing in his bed. He looked around frantically until his eyes landed on Harold sitting silently over in the corner, watching him.

“I thought I told you to leave,” Tony groaned, trying to sit up in bed. He wasn’t having any success, so Harold got up and moved to lift the head of his bed up.

“I’ve never seen you like this…” Harold whispered. “You were always so…” Harold chuckled, “irritatingly sarcastic, arrogant, and well… just downright rude most of the time.”

Tony rolled his eyes and ignored Harold’s comment. Another red flag. The old Tony Stark would have jumped on that with a sarcastic reply such as, ‘_so,_ what’s different now?’, as soon as it left Harold’s mouth, but his heart just wasn’t in it anymore.

“I’m sorry about Nathan…” Tony said after a moment of awkward silence. “He always was the best of us.”

“Yes,” Harold replied pensively, “yes he was…” Harold pulled his chair over closer to the bed and sat down. “Listen, Tony. I can’t even imagine what you went through up there… but I really believe that we can fix this if we do it right.”

“Harold…” he started, “This isn’t stopping sloppy terrorists from blowing up a café… It’s an alien supervillain with the power of the world at his fingertips. He… he flicked me away like a flea. We didn’t stand a chance with him.”

“I’m going to ignore that childish slight towards The Machine… I happen to know you were attempting to build one too when Nathan and I finished. So I can imagine you’re a bit jealous over the whole situation.” Harold leaned in toward Tony’s bed and continued before Stark could get another jab in. “You never did like to come in second…”

Tony didn’t answer him for a long time and then he looked Harold in the eyes, “How’d you get it to give a social security number? Get it to care about people…? In the early 2000s, without having nearly the technology we do now.”

“I’m starting to wonder how you know so much about this…” Harold’s eyes narrowed and he sat back in his chair. “I taught it to care, yes. It was one of my primary goals. Like you always used to say… _I’ve always had too big a heart_.”

Tony smiled and his head fell back to rest against his pillow and he let out a long, exhausted breath.

“I never agreed with what you did with your father's company…” Harold declared bitterly.

“I know… I know… I'm a waste of space because I took over my dad's weapons company after he and my mom were brutally murdered by a rogue super soldier.” Tony rolled his eyes but before he could continue, he was cut off by Harold.

“Let me finish. I was in the office one night finishing up the Machine when you went missing. I was having doubts about it… Whether or not to turn it over to the government… What to do with it.” Harold sighed, “but you had just been taken…everyone thought you were dead... And if my machine could have stopped that in any way…”

Tony’s brows furrowed and his eyes were watery for some reason. “This…” Tony motioned around him, “happened because of all that. I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm a better man. You couldn't have saved me, but you've saved countless others.”

Harold let a small smile slip. He cleared his throat, his eyes were tearing up as well. “I'm no Iron Man…” he chuckled.

“You're better…” Tony said resolutely, looking at Harold. After another moment of silence, Tony smiled and sighed, “So, _genius_, what's your plan?”

\---

“The cosmic activity came from a planet in the Orion sector,” Carol remarked, looking at the screen in front of them. “I've never heard of it… Nor been to that solar system.”

“I might know where it is…” Nebula stepped up, gazing at the hologram. “Father always talked about going to _the garden_ when his mission was complete… He showed it to me once. While we were first searching for the stones. If he's there… The stones are too.”

“And with the cosmic activity produced yesterday, he had to have used them,” Tony remarked, sitting in his wheelchair.

“So let’s go get him,” Harold stated with resolve.

“Whoa, whoa, hold your horses there, buddy,” Rocket jumped up on the table. “Do we not remember what he did to our friends? To us?” He looked at them all, “If I remember right, he kicked our asses. What's different now?”

Carol stepped up and interjected, “You didn't have me…”

Everyone turned and looked at her with their brows raised. “Sorry new girl, but what makes you so special?” Rocket said with a smirk.

Carol cracked a small smile as she looked at Rocket and Nebula, “You know the alien race, the Kree?”

“Yeah. That big blue idiot Ronan was a Kree,” Rocket remarked. “So what?”

“I'm the reason they're no longer terrorizing the galaxy,” she said.

Rocket’s mouth dropped, “Wait a minute… Carol… _The_ Carol Danvers? Also known as Captain Marvel…?”

“Never really understood the name, but yes,” she said with her usual stoic expression. “So. We know where Thanos is. Let's go get him.”

\---

“Harold. I don't think you should go with us,” Steve said when he pulled Harold aside the next day. “Could get really dangerous.”

“We've been over this…” Harold said sternly. “I have nothing left to lose. I'm going.”

“And what are _you_ going to do when they get there, exactly?” Tony chimed in as usual, “talk him to death? Give him a lesson on ethics?” Tony smirked, “No. You're staying here with me. You can feed them intel as they go.”

Harold sighed and finally just gave in. He was a little nervous after all… By what they had told him before… Thanos was not the kind of being he wanted to stand toe to toe with. He would save that for the superheroes. “Fine,” he said.

“So he'll be like our Jarvis?” Steve said before he could catch himself. “Sorry, Tony…”

Tony's expression turned from joking to upset in an instant. He cleared his throat, “No… it's okay. Shouldn't you be getting ready, Steve? You know, putting on your cute tight pants and shining your shield?”

Steve shook his head and scoffed, walking away without giving Tony the satisfaction of a reply.

“Oh wait, that reminds me…” Tony started. He touched a button on his phone and a drawer opened up in the garage. “Your red, white, and blue circle of wonder is in there. Take it back or I’ll have to tell dad you lost it…” Tony winked at Steve.

After Steve headed into the garage, Harold spoke up. “I don't mean to pry… Nor be rude… But who is Jarvis?” Harold asked Tony quietly.

Tony rolled his wheelchair over to the large picture window in the room. He stared outside for a while in silence. There were hardly any birds anymore. Hardly any animals at all. It was so quiet. “Jarvis was the first AI I built. The one I was working on when you and pretty boy Nathan finished yours.”

Harold's mouth opened to respond to the “pretty boy” snark, but Tony continued quickly.

“So I just turned him into my own personal AI. Basically a really cool personal assistant. When Thanos and Loki attacked New York the first time, I knew we'd need something bigger eventually. Something to protect us. So I tried creating a new AI but made it operational. Didn't work out so well the first time around.”

Harold thought for a moment and remembered the news broadcasts and headlines about the avengers fighting a super-robot named Ultron in Sakovia… “Wait a minute, are you telling me you built that Living Automaton that was hell-bent on world domination?”

Tony looked at Harold sideways, “We all make mistakes, Harold, darling. Now can I finish my story?”

Harold smirked, “Of course.”

“Ultron got his hands on the mind stone. But we ambushed his transportation truck, got everything back. He was already building a bot with the mind stone in its head. He was going to use it to destroy the world. So Banner and I added Jarvis’ operational Matrix into what Ultron had already made.” 

“And…?” Harold asked, highly intrigued now.

“Dr. Banner and I created a superbot… We named him Vision. With the full power of the Mind Stone, he was the most powerful being on earth. That is until…”

“Until Thanos came with 5 infinity stones on his hand,” Harold said absently, rubbing his hand over his face. “and plucked Vision's stone right from his head, completing the set.”

“How did you know about that…?” Tony asked with his brows furrowed.

“Captain Rogers and I had a very nice chat last night,” Harold mused with a tired smile on his face. After a while, Harold cleared his throat. “What if we made another one? With Jarvis and my Machine's core heuristics and the operational matrix we could possibly…”

Before Harold could finish his thought Tony's head snapped up to look at Harold with his mouth gaping in astonishment.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to M_E_Lover as always for her beta work :)

“You want to build another Vision?” Dr. Banner interjected anxiously. “Isn’t this kind of what got us into this mess? Messing with the stones? Creating things we can’t control?”

“The big purple asshole would have gotten them no matter what,” Tony remarked, standing up. He was looking much better than he had when Harold first got to the facility. He didn’t quite look like a skeleton anymore. “But what we could do with this…” Tony entreated, “we could bring them all back, Banner. We could use it to defeat him and get the stones back.”

“Thanos almost killed _himself_ when he snapped and _he’s a Titan_. Which one of us is going to be able to do it?” Banner stressed.

Tony looked at Bruce cheekily and didn’t say anything.

Harold just stood by and watched the two hash it out.

“Oh… the big green guy, eh?” Banner chuckled harshly. “Well, we aren’t exactly on good terms right now. You saw what happened in the city.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Tony said with a smile and patted Banner on the shoulder. “Now. We need your help. Harold and I are out of our element as far as your field. But you’re the best bio organics guy out there.”

“Wow, talk about Deja-Vu…” Bruce stared skeptically at the two men in front of him. After a while, he sighed, “Fine… have you run this by Cap? He wasn’t exactly thrilled the last time we did this…”

Tony rolled his eyes, “You let me handle Captain Goody toe-shoes. You and Harold here get started, I’ll go talk with the others. Soften them up a bit.”

Tony walked out of the room, leaving Dr. Banner and Harold alone. Bruce walked over to one of the computers and started typing. Once he was halfway through, multiple holograms started popping up in mid-air. Harold’s mouth dropped. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this…” he walked slowly up to the displays in awe. “I’ve built some of the most complex computer systems in existence… but this…”

“Yeah, crazy isn’t it?” Banner chuckled. “Talking raccoons, aliens, superhumans…” He was finished pulling up what he needed and walked over by Harold. “I _am_ gonna need you to hand that briefcase over if we’re going to do this though…” he looked down at the case still firmly in Harold’s grip.

“I… uhh…” Harold swallowed. “Would you mind if I did it? I’m a bit protective of this.”

Banner smiled, “Of course. I’m just here to help.”

\--- 

Harold was speechless when Tony simply pushed a button and transported a 3D image of his Machine’s core heuristics that hovered in the space between them. She was a breathtaking array of color, a pulsating, practically living entity, that he’d only ever seen on a computer monitor before. Strings of data collided and morphed into intersections of information. This was _his_ child… and he couldn’t be any prouder of his creation.

Tony and Banner stood in awe at what they were seeing in the elegant design and the endless streams of code of The Machine. “You built this when?” Banner asked.

“2001 is when we started, after 9/11. It went online in 2005.” All three men looked at the version of the machine in hologram form floating in front of them. “I created over 43 versions of it until I found one that didn’t try to escape out into the world or kill me.”

“Amazing…” Banner took his glasses off and swiped a few things to the side, “How did the government let you continue to have access to it?”

“It’s… complicated…” Harold replied uneasily.

Tony walked over to a computer and brought up a few more things. “I still have Jarvis’ main complex. When Vision was killed, we lost a lot. Between this… masterpiece…” Tony motioned towards The Machine, “and what I have left of Jarvis, I think it could work.”

Harold turned to face The Machine, his creation, and smiled. He never imagined he would see it like this. With it right there, in front of his face. It appeared… alive.

“There’s one problem though…” Banner spoke up. “How are we going to power it? Without the mind stone, Vision was just a really strong superbot.”

\----

“Hello? Is anyone home?” Video of the front entrance popped up overhead. “Do you remember me? We met a few years ago, in Germany.” It was a smaller guy, dark hair. He was standing in front of a van. “Scott Lang? Ant-man? You’ve gotta remember ant-man.” 

“Uhmm, Tony?” Steve buzzed his earpiece. “I think we might have something…”

\---

“So you’re telling me you think we can time travel?” Tony asked, his hand on his chin.

“Yeah. Time operates differently in the quantum realm. I was trapped in there for over a month and it only seemed like ten minutes,” Scott said, pacing around the room. “As of now, we can’t control it. But what if we could? What if we could control the chaos? Enter at one point and exit at another point in time?”

“So you’re saying we can use the quantum realm to go back in time and stop Thanos?” Banner asked, his eyes trained on Scott as if he was an intruder, not sure whether to trust him or not.

“You can’t just go back in time and change the past in order to alter the future,” Tony spoke up. “Because the future is already your past. You can’t change the future, because if you did, you wouldn’t be the same version of yourself who time-traveled in the first place to make that change.” Tony paused to see if the others had understood. “In doing that, we’d create a bunch of alternate timelines and mess up everything even more.”

Everyone looked at Tony and remained quiet, not sure whether they fully understood what the mastermind was saying.

“Any change to history will create an alternate, or divergent, timeline. Say you kill Baby Thanos,” Tony motioned in the air and started to bring stuff up on his computer displays. “That wouldn’t affect the Thanos in _our _timeline that had already caused the Decimation he has. Instead, it would just create a parallel reality where a different Thanos died as a baby. But our world would remain unchanged.” Tony tried to explain further, “besides, it’s pure luck you got out of that realm and didn’t die in there. There’s no way we could replicate that again. You’re one in a billion.”

“But I’m not… Hank Pym’s wife managed to get out too! After 30 years!”

"Did you say Hank Pym…?" Tony asked, his brow furrowed. "Hank Pym as in scientist Hank Pym? The creator of Pym particles?"

"Uh… yeah," Scott scoffed. "How do you know him?"

"He and my dad went a few rounds back in the day. Always said he was a genius… But cared too much." Tony winked at Harold. "You said he vanished?"

"Yeah. That's why I got stuck in the quantum realm. He was supposed to bring me back out. But…"

"Wow. Talk about terrible timing…" Rhodey spoke up from the back of the room.

"So with no Pym in person, what do you have that even makes you think we could pull this off?" Tony asked.

"6 bottles of Pym particles and a quantum realm tunnel," Scott pressed a button on his keychain and a musical horn started to sound from outside. "It's in the van."

“Of course it is.” Tony rolled his eyes and grinned.

"We could go back in time, get the stones from their original spots, build a new vision, go after Thanos, and undo all of this…" Banner said with a slight smile coming to his face.

"Tony… Do you really think we can figure this out?" Steve asked, stepping forward with his arms crossed.

"Well, we have three of the smartest people in the world standing right here. So if anyone can, it’s us." Tony turned to Scott, "Go pull that atrocious vehicle up to the back, and give the Pym particles to Harold."

“So what exactly are these particles?” Harold asked.

“Subatomic particles of an extra-dimensional nature that are capable of shunting or adding mass and reducing or increasing the scale of any form of matter,” Tony answered, taking the bottles from Harold and putting them in a safe container.

“They make me really small or really big,” Scott said, making it easier for everyone else in the room to understand. Scott looked at Harold, "Wait… Who are you?"

Harold paused for a second and then cleared his throat, "A concerned third party."

"Oh," Scott smiled. "I'm Ant-Man. Nice to meet you." 

\--- 

"Detective?" Harold knocked on Fusco's door later that day.

After a few knocks, an unshaven and frazzled looking Lionel opened the door, "Yeah?"

Harold stepped back a bit at Lionel's appearance. He wasn't all that surprised though. The man had just lost his only child and could do absolutely nothing about it.

"I need you to take Bear for a while…" Harold held up his leash. "I'll be away for some time and I need to leave him with someone I trust…" Harold looked down at the dog, his tail wagging and his ears perked up.

"Yeah and I'm the only one left, eh?" Fusco mused. "Sure, I'll take care of him. Wanna tell me what you're up to?"

Harold didn't say anything for a while, just kept looking down at Bear. Once he figured out what to say, he spoke up, "I have an old friend that might have an idea on how to fix all of this…" Harold motioned around them at the cluttered streets. The eerie thing was that cars were still crashed on the side of roads, food carts left unattended… a truly apocalyptic site.

"Bring them back…?" Fusco asked, his eyes brightening a bit with expectation.

"Detective…" Harold started soberly. "Please don't get your hopes up. I couldn't bear it if this doesn't work."

Fusco nodded his head and smiled sadly, "You go work your magic, glasses. If your friend has half the brain you do, I know you can do it." Fusco took Bear's leash.

Harold knelt down stiffly and buried his hands in the dog’s fur, "I'll be back, boy. I promise. Hopefully the next time you see me… I'll have our other friends with me too." Harold ran his hands over the dogs head a few more times and then stood up, shaking Fusco's hand. "Thank you, Detective."

"Good luck." Fusco smiled before he closed the door.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks as always to M_E_Lover for everything including being the best beta reader out there.

“Okay. So since you have a plan, I’m headed back to help out all the other galaxies. They are having the same problems you are, but they don’t have you guys,” Carol told Tony later one day.

“Are you sure? We could sure use you…” he replied with his brows furrowed.

“Yes. They need me. But if you need me… I’ll be back,” she assured him, shaking his hand.

“Thank you, Carol. Your intel helped a great deal,” Steve added. “I’m sure we’ll see you soon.”

\---

Harold, Tony, Scott, and Banner were in a room at the Avengers facility later that day trying to create a device able to guide them through the quantum realm.

Harold and Tony were hunched over a computer display, while Banner and Scott had fallen asleep over in the corner.

“Try it horizontally.” Harold flipped the display. “That way we can avoid the Uncertainty Principle and measure both the momentum and position of the particle.”

Tony looked at Harold for a moment with his brows furrowed, but then turned his attention back to the display, “F.R.I.D.A.Y, run a simulation. Incorporate the Uncertainty principle and EPR paradox. Try the device in the shape of an inverted Mobius strip.”

After a few moments of flashing lights and things interchanging and twisting around, everything came to a stop.

_‘Simulation successful.’ _F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice was heard overhead.

Harold’s eyes and his mouth were frozen wide open in an expression of stunned surprise.

Tony stood up in alarm, “Holy shit,” he breathed out.

“Did we just…” Harold sat back in his chair, shocked and in disbelief.

“We just figured out time travel…” Tony said, standing up. He threw a book at Banner and Scott, waking them up abruptly.

“Wha…” Banner rubbed his eyes, “What?”

“We’re in business…” Tony said, pointing to the holographic display of something that looked like a watch band in front of them. “A fully functioning time-travel GPS.”

\---

“Careful! We only have enough Pym particles for 4 trips to get the stones and two test runs…” Scott said as he was handing over the bottles of the particles. He sneezed, and suddenly shrunk down to ant size then quickly back to normal size, “Make that one test run…”

Tony and Banner were busy hooking up multiple hoses and wires to the larger version of Scott’s quantum tunnel that he had with him in the van. Tony decided it would be better for them to create a newer, more stable version of the device. It was proving to be a challenge, but they believed they had it almost figured out.

“We’ll need someone to do the test run…” Banner said distractedly, not looking at any of the others watching him from behind him.

It was quiet for a few moments until Steve stepped up. “I’ll do it.”

Tony rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Shocker. Doesn’t the whole self-sacrificial routine get old? I mean what are you now, 102?”

Harold huffed quietly, a painful twinge stabbed his heart as memories of John flooded his mind. It would never get any easier. He missed him_ so_ much. Just when he thought he was beginning to heal… the wound would get torn open again.

Steve ignored Tony and moved toward Scott, “Just show me what to do.”

“Cap…” Banner started but was interrupted when Harold stepped up.

“I’ll do it. I mean, what do I have to lose?” he chuckled painfully. “I’ve pretty much used up my usefulness here.” He looked at Tony solemnly, “I’ll give you access to The Machine, show you how to get into it. In case something goes wrong…”

Tony smiled, “God. It is _exhausting_ being around you two bleeding hearts.” Tony looked at Steve and Harold. “I guess it’s decided then. Harold’s our guinea pig.”

\----

Harold was sitting in the room that they had assigned him at the Avengers facility. Three of the walls were bare but one was made up entirely of windows. It was such a beautiful view here. The waterfront was stunning to look at. It was a far cry from the endless patch of concrete that he had gotten used to in the city.

_John would love this, _he thought to himself absently. His partner had always been someone who loved and appreciated the outdoors. He also thought that John and Steve would get along well. Harold believed that was why he had almost immediately taken with Steve so much and why they seemed to get along very well.

There was a knock on his door, “Come in,” he said, standing up and putting some of his things into his suitcase.

Tony entered the room with a smirk, “We’re ready.”

“Oh… okay,” Harold murmured. “I’ll just be a minute.” Harold walked over and grabbed his briefcase from the closet and held it close to his heart for a moment. “If something happens…” he handed over the nearly indestructible case that housed the future of mankind to Tony. “It’ll do everything for you. All you have to do is turn it on. I think you and Dr. Banner can handle it.”

Tony pushed the case back towards Harold, “Nothing is going to happen. So you keep that in here.”

Harold smirked and shook his head.

“So, you’re giving Banner the coordinates of where you want us to send you back right? And when?” Tony asked, handing Harold his quantum realm suit. “Put that on, by the way. Don’t want you to explode in there.”

Harold was mortified as he looked at the appalling white, black, and red get-up with absolute distaste. “Yes. They’re already programmed into the computer,” he replied unhappily.

“Alright, Harry,” Tony replied, turning to walk out of the room.

“You know I hate being called that…” Harold groaned.

“Yes, yes I do,” Tony turned around with a cheeky smirk and continued to walk back out the room. He gave Harold a wink and a shoulder shrug as he walked through the door.

Harold laid the suit out on the bed and stared at it. He let out a deep breath. “The things I put myself through to save humanity...” He shook his head, “Let’s do this.”

\---

“Alright…” Scott stepped up onto the quantum landing with Harold. “All you need to do for this test is press this button when Tony tells you to. Instantly you’re going to become really tiny, then you’ll get sucked into the Quantum Realm. Once you get to the coordinates of where you need to be, the device you and Tony made will throw you out and you’ll be good to go.”

“That’s it?” Harold asked sardonically as a helmet instantly enclosed his head and a clear shield covered his face.

“That’s it,” Scott smiled and patted Harold on the shoulder encouragingly. He stepped down from the landing and walked back to the computer area with Stark and Banner.

Harold was beginning to get really nervous now. This test would tell them whether or not they had a chance to bring everyone back or not and Harold wouldn’t voice his concerns, but he had his doubts. Not to mention the fact that this Scott fellow just said that he was going to be _‘thrown out’_ of this device.

“Now Harold, when you’re in there, everything’s going to fly by you in the blink of an eye. You might feel sick but you just have to try your best to control it. You’re going to feel pretty discombobulated when you come out, but don’t worry about it, it’ll pass pretty quickly and you’ll be all set to work your magic.” Scott ended his tips and looked at Tony to continue.

“When you’ve finished your objective, the device on your arm will start to beep, that’s the signal you’re going to get thrown back in and come back.” Harold looked down at his arm and just now noticed the small screen on his suit and trying to stop focusing on the term ‘thrown out’ that kept popping up. Numbers and strings of code and coordinates were sliding back and forth. “We’re giving you ten minutes. But it’ll only be a few seconds in our time,” Tony said, hitting a few buttons on the computer. “Ready?”

Harold took a breath, “Ready…” he replied closing his eyes and saying a silent prayer.

“Okay, here we go.” Tony swiped the aerial display and typed a few more commands, then started the count down. “In 3…2…1…”

The floor beneath Harold’s feet seemed to open up beneath him. His body was sucked below while shrinking down to the size of a small insect. He was traveling through what looked like an enclosed water slide. A multitude of colors flew by and he felt an almost unbearable urge to throw up. His arms and legs moved of their own accord until he was able to take control of himself and pull his arms down by his sides and let himself fly through the realm.

Inside his helmet, a few things flashed in front of his face. They were coordinates and it had to have meant that he was getting close to his destination. His helmet beeped and all of a sudden he was thrown into a room, back to normal size.

Harold fell sideways into a stack of books, unable to stand up for a moment. He fought to catch his breath, taking deep, slow inhalations. His vision swam and his heart pounded for a moment until his body caught up to itself and he was able to get up from the floor with the help of one of the shelves next to him.

He looked around and was surrounded by stacks and stacks of books. The smell… he knew that smell. He was in the Library. Six years ago. The exact spot and moment that he had told Banner to put into the computer.

His helmet disappeared back into his suit and he took a large gulp of fresh, familiar air. Oh, how he had missed this place.

He took a few tentative steps forward until he heard movement in one of the other rooms. He stopped in his tracks and swallowed hard. _You can do this, Harold…_ he told himself. He started moving towards the sound and his heart leapt to his throat when he saw what he imagined all along he would see…

John was snooping through the Library before he had even gotten in that morning so long ago. The recollection of those early days tugged at his heart while he watched his partner wistfully.

He closed his eyes and let out a pained breath of air. He didn’t realize how much he had missed John until he saw him. Until he saw those beautiful blue eyes, those high cheekbones, and the way he always held himself with such confidence…

In front of him, John was looking through the bookshelf when he grabbed a specific book, The Ghost in The Machine. A picture fell out from between the pages and John bent down to pick it up. He studied the picture for a moment before he looked up and touched his earpiece.

Harold smiled warmly at the memory. _‘Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Reese. I’m in here.’_

John turned and started to walk directly toward Harold. _Both Harolds._

Harold ducked down behind one of the bookshelves and held his breath. He watched as John walked directly in front of him. He wanted so badly to reach out and grab him. Warn him about what was going to happen to him in the future. But he bit his tongue and swallowed hard. Tears forming in his eyes.

Once John was passed, he walked over to the picture John had found of him and Nathan at MIT and picked it up. He rubbed his thumb over some of the dust covering Nathan’s face and sighed.

The screen on his arm started to beep and he panicked. He started limping toward the main room, his heart started to hammer in his chest again. “John!” he yelled once before time ran out and he quickly turned back to tiny size and was thrown back into the quantum realm. He could hear the familiar banter from the past as he transformed...

_“I’m coming,” John replied to Harold through his earpiece. He walked into the main room, “Where’d you come from?” _

_“I breached the space-time continuum…” Harold replied dryly. _

Harold flew through the realm just as he had earlier. This time he didn’t quite feel like he was going to throw up, but just the idea that his body was doing this_ thing _that should be impossible made his stomach churn. He fell out of the realm and onto the ground, landing right on the spot that he had fallen through the floor just seconds earlier. “Ow…” he groaned, reaching for his neck.

The others ran over to him in alarm. Steve helped him stand, “Are you okay?”

Harold gathered himself and held up the picture he still had in his hand in awe, “It worked…” he breathed out. “It worked.”

Tony grabbed the picture and smiled optimistically. “Well then, let’s go get those stones.”


	7. Chapter 7

Harold and Tony were creating a few more time-travel devices later that day for everyone. Tony was messing around with one of the displays when he looked up and saw Harold over by a table, still looking at the picture he had brought back with him from his initial time travel.

“You know you can’t bring _him_ back…” Tony said quietly as he walked over to Harold.

Harold turned around and glared at the billionaire, “Of course I know that.”

“I missed you both, you know…” Tony said, walking back over to his work station. “I didn’t want to leave… I never wanted to take over dad’s company, but he and my mom were gone and it was just me. I felt like I had to.”

“I know. Nathan wanted to bring you on when we started IFT. A partnership with Stark Industries would have been groundbreaking. But I was selfish… bitter. I apologize for that.”

Tony smirked, “It’s about damn time. You’ve been here for almost two months and I’ve yet to hear an apology.”

Harold rolled his eyes and got back to work. About 10 minutes into it, Tony seemed like he had started to get distracted.

“I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you I know about the little… operation you’ve got with your friend John,” Tony blurted out, not taking his attention off his work.

Harold looked up from his work, his eyes wide, “And how, may I ask, do you know that?”

“Harold. Money gets you almost whatever, wherever, you want. You know this.” Tony winked, “The Man in the Suit? Really? You don’t think Iron Man knew about that? It’s my job to know about those things. When I found out it was you and that gorgeous tall, dark, and handsome ex-CIA operative… I decided to let it slide.”

Harold didn’t say anything for a moment. He was trying to decide _what_ to say... if he should deny it or not, when Tony continued.

“Don’t worry. I’m the only one who knows, and should we succeed at our little time-travel mission, it’ll stay that way.”

Harold breathed a sigh of relief. Tony was an extremely sarcastic, and a downright irritating human being much of the time but he was not a liar. “Thank you.”

\--- 

“Okay so now that we know we can go back, we have to figure out when and where we’re going to go back to. Everyone in this room has had an encounter at some point in history with these stones,” Banner said.

“Scratch that, almost been _killed_ by one of the infinity stones…” Tony interjected, double espresso in his hand, “We only have enough Pym particles for one round trip each, and these stones have been in _a lot_ of different places throughout our timeline. So not a lot of convenient places to just drop in.”

“We need to decide who is going to go to get which stones and where to get them from. Since we have very few Pym particles left, we’ll have to find a timeline where some of the stones are together. We’ll start with the Reality Stone. Thor, you know the most about that one, indulge us.”

“Well, it’s not so much a stone as it is an aether. More like an angry, red sludge. The last time I saw it, it was on Asgard, my home planet. But then dark elves came, killed my mother, and stole it.”

“Dark elves…?” Harold asked startled while planting his chopsticks inside his carton of kung pao chicken.

“Yeah, try to keep up, Harold…” Tony winked at him and smirked, “You think elves sound scary, just wait until you get a load of Thanos.”

“Okay, and how about the power stone…?” Steve asked, walking up to the display and swiping it so that a purple gem was now in place of the red one.

“Quill said he stole it from Morag,” Rocket spoke up.

“Morag… is that a person?” Scott asked.

“No! Morag is a planet, Quill is a person,” Rocket rolled his eyes. “After that, we gave it to the Nova Corps on Xandar… yes, another planet… in outer space…” Rocket included with a scoff after Scott opened his mouth to talk again.

“The time stone was with Doctor Strange,” Tony spoke up, the greenstone appearing on the display. “Nice place in the village… Sullivan street, I think.”

“The mind and space stones were in New York in 2012…”

Harold stood up from the table they were all sitting at. “So, if you pick 2012… 3 of the stones are in New York at the same time…”

“Shut the front door,” Banner spit out his ice cream. “That seemed too easy,” he chuckled nervously.

\---

“So it’s settled. 3 teams, 6 stones, 1 shot,” Steve started. “We go back, get the stones, and then we get our friends back… our family back.”

“Nice pep talk…” Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Thor and build-a-bear, you’re going to Asgard to get the aether. Nebula, Rhodey, and Natasha are going to outer space to get the soul stone and power stone. Captain perfect, Harold, Scott, Banner and I are going back to New York, 2012, to get the remaining three stones.”

“Sounds like a well-oiled plan,” Scott smiled.

The group was all clad in their red, white, and black quantum suits. “Here we go,” Steve spoke up as they all made their way up to the quantum podium. They stood in a circle on the outside of the pad. “Starting in 3… 2… 1…” Banner pressed a few keys and powered up the tunnel.

“See you in a minute,” Natasha winked at Steve as the tunnel started to swirl on the floor and started to hum. In seconds, the floor underneath them opened up and sucked the group inside, transporting them into the quantum realm. Each group veered off into separate tunnels until they were all shot out of the realm and to their respective time and destinations.

The New York group was shot into an alleyway somewhere in downtown Manhattan. Once they all gathered themselves, their suits disappeared and they were in their normal clothes again. “Okay, so Harold, Steve, Scott, and I are going to Avengers tower. Banner, you head over to Strange’s place and get the time stone.

Harold looked around. He remembered this day.

The battle of New York.

Thanos had sent Loki and his army to New York to retrieve the space and mind stones. The Avengers had defended them, saved the city.

Harold recalled that John was doing work behind the scenes today. Saving innocent people when they were stuck in homes or their cars, just being the hero he so naturally was.

Harold looked up to one of the street signs, 5th Ave… He remembers John making a specific visit to the Children’s hospital… helping evacuate the children and their families.

“Alright, let’s go. We’re heading this way,” Tony said as he tapped the arc reactor on his chest and was encapsulated inside his Iron Man suit.

Harold barely heard his old friend speak when he saw John run by about a block over. He moved forward a few steps tentatively, wanting to chase after him. His eyes were trained on his partner, running into the hospital and coming out swiftly with a child under each of his arms. Harold didn’t even notice Tony grabbing him by his arm and putting a helmet over his head before they flew off, headed for Avengers tower.

“No, wait!” Harold yelped when he realized what had happened.

“You can’t, Harold. This is going to work… you’ll see him soon enough,” Tony said sympathetically, not even looking at Harold.

Tony and Harold flew through the sky, heading for Stark tower. Harold was still in the shock of being back in time that it didn’t even hit him that he was_ flying_ until he looked down and then a sudden wave of nausea flooded over him.

“Try not to throw up in the helmet, eh?” Tony chuckled. “Ya know, I was gonna give you your own suit after all this is done, Harold.”

“Please…” Harold took a deep breath and swallowed down his fear, “No, don’t do me any favors.”

They landed on the roof of Tony’s giant tower residence. Harold went to his knees and started to heave into one of the plant pots. The adrenaline rush wearing off and his stomach turned to knots.

Steve put his hand on his shoulder sympathetically, “You’ll get used to it.”

“I’m dearly hoping…” Harold heaved again, “I won’t have to.”

Tony’s suit disappeared again back into the glowing reactor on his chest, nanotechnology, something Harold would have to discuss with him later. It could come in handy with John and their missions.

“Alright so Scott and Captain Perfect are going after the scepter, Harold and I will go get the tesseract.” Tony looked at Harold who still had his face buried in the brown plant pot, “Well… after Einstein is through throwing up his lunch.”

Harold stood up and glared at his old friend. He brushed himself off and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, “Let’s go, then.”

\---

Just minutes later, the quantum tunnel powered up again, signaling everyone’s return to Avengers facility. All of a sudden, lights flashed and the tunnel opened up as they all returned back to the spots they stood just minutes earlier.

Everyone looked around and their suits disappeared.

“Did we do it?” Scott asked, his eyes wide, Loki’s scepter in his hand.

“I think we did it…” Bruce said as he held up The Eye of Agamotto, holding the time stone.

“And I got my hammer back,” Thor held up his once destroyed hammer to everyone with a smile.

Tony smirked, “Let’s bring them back then, eh?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks as always to M_E_Lover for her beta work :)

Tony, Harold, Banner, and Rocket were all in the room, deciding what to do with the stones. “If we put them together, I don’t think any of us will be strong enough to handle them,” Tony said, his hand on his chin.

“Except the big guy…” Banner spoke up from his spot behind the others. He had an intense look on his face. His brows furrowed and then he chuckled harshly.

No one said anything, just looked at Bruce who was clearly going through something internally. He scrunched his face and clenched his teeth.

“Strange suggested meditation when we met…” Bruce growled. “I’ve been working on it and you’d be amazed at what it can do.”

Harold’s eyes grew wide, certain that he was about to witness Banner turn into the Hulk. Tony ran over to him and placed a reactor on his chest and double-tapped it. Before he realized what had happened, Harold was encased in an Iron Man suit.

Tony was engulfed in his own and Rocket slid under one of the tables, out of the way.

“I can’t…” Banner started to twitch and groan, the veins were popping out of his neck.

“We have to do something!” Harold yelled, panic taking hold.

“We gotta let him work it out. Stay back,” Tony warned, taking a few tentative steps back away from Bruce.

Banner’s head shot up and he looked at Tony and Harold, “I got it…” he said through clenched teeth. His skin started to turn light green and his muscles started to pop out, making him appear like a bodybuilder at first, and then a superhuman once he fully started to transform. Banner yelled and his fists were clenched tight.

Once it was all said and done, The Hulk stood in front of them. Giant, green, and angry looking. “Where’s Thanos?” The large green giant growled. He had somehow managed to combine the best parts of the green killing machine and the genius that was Dr. Banner.

“Holy shit,” Tony chuckled harshly.

\---

They worked tirelessly through the night perfecting the glove-like gauntlet for them to put all the stones into. The gauntlet was made of Tony’s trademark racing red and gold suit material. They were carefully trying to handle all the stones and put them into the glove.

Once they had them all successfully placed in the glove, they took a collective sigh of relief. “So now what?” Harold asked quietly.

They all stared at the device that would hopefully save the future in front of them. “We snap…” Tony said, looking at Banner who had an indifferent look on his face.

“I’ll do it,” Thor said, walking forward. “I’ve already lost enough.”

“Woah, woah…” Rocket and Tony stepped in front of the God of Thunder. “That thing is channeling enough energy to light up a continent…”

“What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?” Thor pleaded, “Lightning…”

“Lightning won’t help you, pal. It’s gotta be me.” The now Hulk-sized Banner walked toward the glove that was on display. He looked up at all of them and smiled, “Once we do this… we’re going to kill Thanos, right?” It was still a little weird for everyone to see Banner as the Hulk, speaking full sentences and not missing a beat.

“Of course, big guy,” Tony patted him on his arm. “F.R.I.D.A.Y, enact the barndoor protocol, eh?”

_“Yes, boss.”_

All of a sudden, metal started to drop down from the ceiling, covering over the windows, seemingly sealing the others inside. It was protection in the case that this snap decimated everyone in the facility.

Harold gulped, starting to realize how much they had riding on this and that this could either go right… or horribly wrong.

“Harold, take this.” Tony put the reactor back on his chest. “In case things get hairy.”

“I told you I didn’t want one of these…” Harold groaned.

“Trust me, Harold. If this goes wrong, you’re gonna want a suit,” Steve winked at him.

“For now, just stand behind me…” Tony was enclosed in his suit and a blue, nanotech shield appeared in front of them.

The others all stood at the ready, Ant man’s helmet enclosed around his face, Cap held up his shield. Bruce looked around one more time and took a deep breath, “Everyone comes home…” He tentatively started to put his hand inside the gauntlet; it shifted to shape to his size. Suddenly, multiple colors of what looked like lightning started to fly around his arm, the Glove looking like it was going to explode. “Ahhhhhh…” Banner’s teeth clenched and his eyes squeezed shut.

“Talk to me, Banner…” Tony said, stepping back a bit.

“I’m okay…” Banner groaned, his teeth still clenched tightly together. With all his strength he was able to lift his arm up slowly. The lightning and power from all the stones being together were almost too much until, at the drop of a hat, he snapped his fingers, he fainted and the gauntlet slid off his arm. Thor kicked it away.

He fell to the ground, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

“Don’t move him!” Steve yelled, running to his side with the others.

“Did it work?” Banner asked. He lay on the ground, his arm burned and appearing more a shade of black rather than the normal Hulk green. Tony knelt next to him and sprayed foam on his friend’s arm from the fire extinguisher protocol he’d installed in the suit after the mark 12 disaster.

Everyone looked on as Banner groaned and grimaced in pain… the power of all six infinity stones coursing through his veins had done its damage.

Scott walked tentatively over to the large picture window in the next room after the barricades had lifted from the walls. Outside, birds flew and hovered around the trees... a squirrel ran up the trunk of a large pine tree.

Suddenly, Harold felt his pocket start to vibrate. His heart stopped for a moment and he gulped, suddenly unable to breathe or think through the implication of what it could mean. He closed his eyes and pulled his phone out of his pocket anxiously. He took a breath and opened his eyes, choking out a breath when he saw the familiar number on the screen.

He slid the screen lock over and put the phone to his ear.

“He… hello…?” Harold answered nervously, his voice quiet.

“Hey, Harold,” the beloved, raspy voice spoke.

Harold opened his mouth to speak, but as soon as he did, an explosion rocked the facility. He felt himself flying through the air, his arms and legs flailed and he knew it was only a matter of seconds before he would be thrown into the wall.

Remembering the reactor that Tony had given him, his hand flew to his chest and he double-tapped on the blue metal piece. Thousands of tiny nanotech bites started to surround him and encase him in a protective suit.

As soon as he slammed against the wall, he was fully covered in one of Tony’s Iron Man suits, protecting him. He grimaced and groaned. He opened his eyes and tried to focus through the sound of rushing water and the building collapsing around him.

He managed to get up on his knees, the suit weighing him down some. He didn’t know how Tony moved in this thing as easily as he did. He looked around for a second, the facility was completely gone. Nothing but rubble remained of the once huge and lavish Avengers refuge.

Tony flew down in front of him, also in his Iron Man suit. “Hey, Harold. Let’s get you out of here.”

“What happened?” Harold asked, standing up and brushing debris from the suit.

“When you mess with time… time tends to mess back…” Tony said, helping Harold stand. “Just listen to F.R.I.D.A.Y. She’ll get you to where you need to go.”

“I’m staying here. I want to help!” Harold replied firmly, standing his ground.

Tony gave Harold a slight smirk before he tapped Harold’s ches_t, “Hello, sir. Would you like to enact the escape protocol?”_ A voice came from within the suit. Harold recognized it as Tony’s AI program.

“Yes,” Tony replied. The suit powered up and holograms and coordinates appeared on the screen in front of his face. Without warning, the suit took off and Harold was flying through the air again.

Harold internally cursed his old friend. He wanted to help. He _had_ to help. There was no way he could just sit by and let them lose… _again._

After a moment, Harold landed at another building just outside the blast zone. He hurried into the building and saw that it was an off the grid office space for Tony. More than likely for a situation like this. He tapped his chest, sending the nanotech bites back into the reactor and freeing him of the suit.

“Can you hear me?” He tapped his earpiece.

“Yes,” F.R.I.D.A.Y.S voice came to his ear.

“Bring up all the surveillance you can from outside.” He started to type on the keyboard and brought up multiple displays to hover over him. “And set a tracker on John Reese.”

_“Searching…”_

Harold held his breath and continued to bring up surveillance and send out drones that Tony had given him access to early on in his stay at Avengers palace.

_“No result found for Reese, John.”_

“What?” Harold breathed out in disbelief. He had just heard John’s voice on the other line… How could he still be gone? u

“Hey, Harold. We could use some help out here…” Steve’s voice came to his ear. “We need extra eyes to find those stones. We have to keep them away from him.”

Harold swallowed hard, trying to hold himself together. “Uhh… okay… give me a moment…” He swiped and began typing, bringing up multiple angles and views. His heart sank to his stomach when he saw him. “Uhmm… Captain… Tony… I think it’s…” Harold gulped at the sight of the giant purple alien making his way out of a huge spaceship. “Thanos.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's been a while since I've updated. Real-life is hectic right now. Hope you all enjoy! :)


	9. Chapter 9

“Of course it is…” Tony scoffed. Harold could hear that he was flying and soon enough, he landed in front of The Mad Titan. Thor flew down from out of nowhere, his new axe in hand. Captain America slid in, standing next to the other two superheroes.

The sight around them was horrifying. Rubble and debris were strewn everywhere. It looked like a war zone that Harold had always seen in disaster movies and history books. Fire was burning what was left of the building. It looked like a meteor had hit.

“You could not live with your failure…” Thanos sat down gingerly on a piece of rubble, “Where did that bring you?” He smiled, “back to me.” Thanos looked up at the three standing in front of him, “I thought by eliminating half of all life, the other half would be grateful for what I had done for them… given them room to thrive.” He sighed, “But as long as there are those who know what was, they will never truly appreciate what could be. They will resist.”

“Yup, we’re all kinds of stubborn,” Tony said tauntingly, walking closer to the Titan.

“I destroyed my stones. So you could not undo my correction…” Thanos stood, putting his helmet on and taking his weapon in hand.

Harold stared on in awe. Now realizing what the cosmic activity was that The Machine had detected back when he first arrived at the Facility.

“But now… I will get the stones again. Only this time, I will shred this universe down to its last atom. Then, with the stones you’ve collected for me, I will create a new one with life that knows not what it has lost, only what it has been given.”

Thor held out his axe, lighting radiating around his whole body. Tony’s helmet appeared over his face, and Cap held up his shield, ready to fight.

“A grateful universe,” Thanos finished, looking the three of them in the eyes.

“Born out of blood,” Cap replied, glaring at his enemy.

“They’ll never know. Because you won’t be alive to tell them.” The Titan smiled.

Thor started to yell, lightning flew everywhere. He lunged at Thanos.

The Mad Titan held him off, hitting him with his giant razor blade-like weapon. He flew back, sliding back and his heels.

Steve ran into the fight, Tony flew around, shooting the crazed Titan with enough power to light up half of New York.

"Harold, how are the others doing?" Tony asked.

Harold brought up a few other cameras and searched the decimated compound. "I… I'm not sure. I don't see anyone else."

"Well keep looking," Steve grunted, throwing his shield.

\---

“Rocket, Nat, Rhodey, get out of here!” Bruce yelled, holding up the collapsing debris. He yelled, trying his best to prevent the large piece of concrete from crushing them all. “I can only… hold it for so… long.”

Natasha was trying desperately to help Rocket who was lodged between two stones and Rhodey’s suit was stuck under another large rock. “Open up,” Rhodey groaned, his suit opening to let him out from underneath the rock. He crawled over to an open spot, taking a few deep breaths.

Suddenly, the water started to rush into the spot they were in, flooding it in seconds. They struggled to stay above water, gasping for breath.

“Mayday mayday! Does anyone copy? We’re on the lower level. It’s flooding!” Rhodey’s voice came into Scott’s ear.

“Wait, just hold on, I copy! I’m on my way!” Scott shrunk down to ant size and slid under all the debris, rushing to help the three stuck underneath the decimated building.

\---

“Hey Harold,” Tony said. “I need you to do something for me.” The genius flew around and landed in front of Thor, who held his axe up towards the sky, channeling lightning with his weapon. He pointed it towards Tony who used the energy to overpower his suit, shooting the Mad Titan with an extraordinary amount of power.

“What do you need?” Harold asked, anxious to help in any way possible.

“You see the big blue button on the control panel?” Tony was blindsided by a punch from Thanos, sending him tumbling to the ground. “Press it. It’ll bring up a chamber.”

Harold slammed his hand down on the button, opening up the floor behind him. “What is it?” Harold asked, unsure of what was going to show up in the chamber.

“Remember when we were going to build another superbot? Yeah well… I had some free time between the whole saving the world gig.”

Harold’s mouth dropped when he saw the almost human-like thing in front of his face. It was red and blue; it looked a lot like the pictures that Harold had seen of Vision.

“Is it…” Harold started.

Tony groaned on the other end of the line and Harold had flashbacks to his days with John.

“Yeah, it’s almost done. I just need you to finish the coding. You know your machine better than anyone.” Harold heard a loud crash, looking on the screen he saw that Tony had been thrown into a piece of debris, doing damage to suit. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to the fight to save the universe.”

“Wait!” Harold yelped, not sure if he could do this. But the line was cut off. Perhaps Tony’s suit’s communication unit was damaged, but more likely Tony had just cut him off, leaving him to do it himself.

Harold took a deep breath and sighed, _“You can do this, Harold,” _he thought to himself. He started to finish the job that Tony had started, keeping him busy while the others were fighting off the Mad Titan.


	10. Chapter 10

“Okay, Thor. Hit me again,” Tony yelled, standing in front of Thanos.

Thor powered up his hammer again, throwing lightning toward Tony. Only this time when Tony shot him with the laser beams, the Mad Titan held up his weapon, blocking the blow.

Thor threw his hammer, only instead of hitting Thanos, the Mad Titan picked up Tony and held him in front of him. The lightning powered ax slammed Tony back into a pile of rubble, shocking him with the electricity of the lightning and knocking him unconscious.

_“Boss, wake up!”_ F.R.I.D.A.Y’S voice pleaded.

Steve ran at their enemy, flying through the air and kicking Thanos in the face, only to be thrown backward by a powerful punch.

Thor’s hammer flew back to his hand, wielding both his ax and hammer as he charged at the Titan. He swung his ax towards his face, only to be met in resistance with the Titan’s blade-like weapon. Thor managed to knock the blade away, leaving Thanos defenseless, but he caught the God of Thunder off guard, knocking his ax from his hand and grabbing him by the throat, tossing him to the side like a flea. His back slammed into a slab of gravel. Thanos charged, punching Thor’s face back into the debris three times, blood dripped from his mouth.

Exhausted, Thor held his hand out for his ax to return, only to have it intercepted by the Titan. He swung it forward, trying to decapitate the God of Thunder. But Thor grabbed the handle, trying to hold the ultimate blow off. Between the leverage Thanos had and his strength, he was inching closer and closer to Thor’s chest.

But right before he was about to kill the God of Thunder, his hammer flew backward, knocking Thanos off his feet and away from Thor. Looking back, Thor saw Steve standing behind them, wielding his hammer.

“I knew it,” Thor spit out blood from his mouth.

Unimpressed, Thanos kicked Thor to the side. He charged at Steve, his own weapon back in his hand. Steve summoned lightning from the sky, holding Thor’s hammer in the air. He swung down the hammer and lightning flew down and stopped the Titan in his tracks, flattening him into the ground.

Thanos staggered to his feet and Steve ran at him, swinging the hammer and driving him back, knocking him off his feet. But he got back up again, running after Cap. Cap threw the hammer, but it was knocked to the side by the Titan, leaving Cap vulnerable again.

Thanos jumped in the air and came down hard on Steve, his shield trying to block the blow. It didn’t help much, as the all but indestructible vibranium metal that made up Cap’s infamous shield, was shredded to pieces by the repeated blows from Thanos. One final swing of the Titan’s blade sent Cap flying through the air, landing 20 feet away in the dirt.

Beaten down and exhausted, Steve lay on the ground, heaving for breath. The others were still nowhere to be found.

He rolled himself over painfully and coughed up blood. He staggered to his feet and tightened the strap of what was left of his shield to his arm.

Thanos grinned, “In all my years of conquest… violence… slaughter.” The Titan looked around at the decimation he had caused. “It was never personal. But I’ll tell you… what I’m about to do to your stubborn, annoying, little planet… I’ll enjoy very, very much.” Suddenly, beams of light shot down from Thanos’ ship. Revealing his whole army. The Black Order. Ships and troops upon troops, there had to be thousands of them, stood at the ready.

They approached Steve, who now stood alone. He walked forward, ready to take on the whole army by himself or die trying, when his earpiece started to make static sounds.

“Cap, it’s Sam… can you hear me?” A familiar voice came to his ear. He put his hand over his ear for a moment, not sure if what he was hearing could really be true, it seemed like an eternity since he’d heard his lost friend’s voice. “On your left…”

Steve turned around and suddenly, one of the portals that Dr. Strange was always able to create open up behind him. It blinded him at first, but once his eyes adjusted, three figures step through; Okoye, Shuri, and Black Panther, fully restored and ready to fight. Steve and the revived Wakandans share a look when Falcon zooms in from above.

As he did, dozens of more portals open up all around the battlefield. Through one of these, Doctor Strange descends in. He’s joined by Drax, Mantis, Star-Lord, and Spider-Man.

Steve watched in confusion and awe as more and more heroes arrive from all corners of the universe, all backed up with forces of their own including Black Panther and his Wakandan army, Valkyrie and the Asgardians, Wong and the Masters of the Mystic Arts and several Ravager ships.

Amongst the throngs of heroes Bucky, Groot, the Scarlet Witch, and the Wasp make their way out of one of the portals.

“Is that everyone?” Dr. Strange turned to his sorcerer Wong.

“You wanted more?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

Just then an unbearably loud explosion sounded and Ant-Man busted up through the debris that was once the Avengers Facility. He had grown to the size of a T-rex, holding out his palm and releasing Rhodey, Rocket, Natasha, and The Hulk from being trapped below the crushing debris.

\---

Harold watched on with wide eyes. His heart was hammering in his chest. The finishing touches were going into the new bot and he just had to wait for the final megabytes of the Machines code to fully upload.

“Come on… Come on…” he groaned, typing furiously into the screen to try to make things go faster.

Once he saw what was happening outside, his mouth gaped. They were all back… everyone one of the people Tony said had vanished were right there, walking through the yellow portals.

As soon as Harold was about to panic because he hadn’t heard from John… someone in a black and red Iron Man suit flew out from a portal, landing beside Tony.

Harold’s earpiece buzzed and his heart leaped to his throat, “Like the new look?” John’s smooth, raspy voice instantly brought a tear to Harold’s eye.

“Guess it brings a whole new meaning to The Man in the Suit…” Harold chuckled, desperately wanting to get to his partner.

Just then a sound emitted from the chamber in the building holding their creation. Harold turned around sharply to see the door opening and the progress bar on the screen showing it had gotten to 100%.

“Tony… I think it’s ready…” Harold gulped, seeing… well, he didn’t know exactly what he was seeing. The bot seemed to come to life in mere seconds; its eyes opened and its chest started to rise and fall.

Suddenly, without any warning, it shot out of the chamber, flying out through the roof of the building and soaring towards the battlefield.

The being landed beside Tony and Cap, a smile on his face. “Gentleman…” It was Jarvis’ voice again. The core code of Vision still remained.

Cap smirked and looked toward the almost never-ending army in front of him, then to his army behind him. “Avengers!” he took a breath, “Assemble.”

Thor makes a battle cry. They run at each other, Thanos standing on one side, his weapon raised indicating to his army to charge.

Chaos ensued, bodies were everywhere, the superheroes were holding off the Titan and his army as best as they could.

Tony shot at one of the larger goons of Thanos’ army, but the being just kept coming at him. Out of nowhere, webbing encircled the things hands, holding him still while Ant-Man took one gigantic step and crushed it below his foot.

Peter Parker swung down on a web and ran toward Tony. “Hey! Hey! You would not believe what happened. Remember when we were in space and I got really dusty?”

Tony smiled, never thinking he would see this dorky teenager again.

“Well I must have passed out because I woke up and Dr. Strange was there and then he was like ‘Get up they need help!’ and then he started making those yellow sparkly thingies with his hands.” Peter mimicking a circle with his own hand.

Tony just kept the smile on his face and leaned in and wrapped his arms around the younger kid. Enveloping him in a bear hug.

“What…” Peter started. “Oh… this is nice…” He relaxed into the hug.

\---

Harold stood by and watched. That was all he could do. Feeling helpless, he started to swipe and type on the computer, trying anything he could to help. “Tony! What can I do?”

“I don’t know, Harold…” Tony groaned. “Wait. You should have access to all the suits from the control panel. Fire them up and control them from there.”

Harold started to search throughout the control panel until he saw a big red button with an Iron Man head on it. “Subtle…” Harold scoffed.

He was looking at the camera feeds, trying to see where he could send the suits when he saw something… it was glowing. “What the… Oh dear…” Harold saw the gauntlet laying in the grass away from the fighting field. It was closest to him so he immediately took off after it.

Unbeknownst to him, one of Thanos’ goons had also spotted the gauntlet and ran towards it.

Harold had managed to get to the prize first and as he bent over to pick it up, a voice spoke up, “I think that’s mine…” It was a deep, terrifying voice. He looked up to see some kind of alien standing over him. It held a bladed staff and wore a cloak. He was gray and looked like he could kill Harold and not even have a second thought about it.

Harold lunged for the gauntlet, covering it with his body. The alien lunged forward and held the blade to Harold’s head. “Hand it over…”

“Don’t tell him what to do…” John Reese’s voice came from behind them. He stood at the ready, a few steps behind Harold, his reactors pointed at what appeared to be Thanos’ right-hand man.

“Hand it over or you both die,” he growled.

“I don’t think so…” John smirked. The helmet instantly covered over his face and he flew at the enemy. Harold grabbed the gauntlet and rolled out of the way, clutching it tightly to his chest. John shot but the thing held up his weapon, shielding him from the blaze. John had slid to his knees, undercutting the large alien and knocking him to the ground.

Harold stood up, ready to run the first chance he got, vowing to protect the gauntlet with his life if necessary.

The large alien stood again, seemingly unfazed. John punched and kicked, trying desperately to knock out his opponent. Bullets flew out of the back of his suit, hitting him in the knees, and sending him to the ground in pain. John grabbed the weapon from his attacker and drove it through his chest, silencing him before he could even blink.

Harold stared on in shock. Not quite sure what to do. He still clutched onto the red and gold gauntlet like a lifeline.

John turned around and the helmet covering his face disappeared. He walked slowly toward his partner, a toothy smile on his face.

Harold’s mouth curved into a smirk of his own as his partner approached him, “I missed you…” Harold whispered, his hands going to John’s face.

“I’m so sorry…” John said as if this was his fault.

“Okay, I know this is very sweet and cute and all but can we _please_ get back to saving the universe?” Tony said sarcastically through both of their earpieces.

Harold rolled his eyes and John smirked. “We’ll talk later. I’ll take this…” He took the gauntlet from Harold, “and don’t think I’m gonna let it slide that you didn’t tell me you were friends with Iron Man…” John’s brow furrowed and he flew off without another word.

Harold scoffed, “Friend is a strong word!” he yelled back to his partner flying away.

Harold made his way back to the secluded building, bringing up multiple feeds and pressing the button to release all of the suits from their confines. Harold wasn’t even sure they would work. They were more than likely trapped under all this debris.

But sure enough, off in the distance, the ground started to rumble and before Harold knew it, multiple Iron Man suits flew out from the carnage. _‘Okay… here we go, Harold. If you can fly a plane, you can do this…’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John and Harold are reunited :)


	11. Chapter 11

“What do you want me to do with this damn thing?” John yelled, flying throughout the battlefield, trying to avoid his attackers.

“Get it out of here!” Cap yelled, throwing his shield.

“No!” Banner replied, tossing someone to the side like a bug. “We have to get the stones back to where they came from or risk messing up reality.”

“The tunnel got blown to hell in the explosion…” Tony replied.

“That wasn’t our only time machine…” Ant-Man joined the conversation, shrinking back down to normal size. He pressed a button on his suit and the distinct musical horn started playing in the distance.

“Anyone see a brown ugly van?” Cap asked.

“Yeah, but you won’t like where it’s parked…” Peter said, using one of the ships to fly through the air on his webs.

The van/time portal was stuck beside some debris, on the side that all of Thanos’ army was coming from.

“Get it up and running…” John told Scott. “I’m on my way.”

“You got it,” Hope said, appearing next to Scott in the Wasp suit with a smile.

\---

“You took everything from me,” Wanda scowled at Thanos, her eyes trained on the Titan.

“And I’ll do it again...” Thanos said, wielding his weapon, ready to fight.

“No, you won’t.” She used the energy manipulation given to her by the infinity stone and lifted Thanos up, suspending him in midair. She shattered his weapon, the blade falling to the ground. His armor started to break and fall apart.

“Rain fire!” Thanos yelled, his eyes squinted shut tight, unable to even move.

“But sire, our troops!” One of his men replied.

“Just do it!” Thanos demanded.

\---

John flew through the battle, rushing to get to the quantum tunnel. He held onto the gauntlet tightly, shooting all of the others that tried to get to him and take the power of the world from him.

Once he was about halfway there, he was overrun. He was stuck, trying desperately to fight away his attackers. “Need a little help!” he shouted. Harold sent two more suits to John’s aid, trying to fend off the army. But it wasn’t helping much, they were vastly outnumbered.

Spiderman swung in, “I got it!” he yelled as John tossed him the gauntlet. He was almost overtaken with attackers when he started to take off, “Activate instant kill!” he yelled, his suit taking on a mind of its own and decimating everything in his path.

Suddenly, Thanos’ ship started to rain fire everywhere from above, onto the battlefield. People were flying through the air, explosions rocked the site. “I got this. I got this! Okay, I don't got this. Help! Somebody, help!” Peter yelled from his position, trying to fight off the remaining attackers.

The new bot Harold and Tony created flew in and grabbed Peter from the mountain of Thanos’ army. “Hey! Nice to meet--- Oh, my God!” Peter yelled as they flew through the air. Without warning, they were hit, sending Peter and the gauntlet flying through the air and colliding with the ground.

The ship was destroying everything in its missiles paths, halting the battle and sending everyone hiding. Rocket jumped on top of Groot, trying to cover him from the blast, not ready to lose his friend again.

Suddenly, the attack stopped. The ship’s blasters pointed up towards something unseen in the sky and started firing.

“What the hell…?” Falcon asked, soaring through the air.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., what are they firing at?” Tony asked.

_“Something just entered the upper atmosphere.” _

Suddenly a lighted figure flew through the air and decimated Thanos’ ship. Flying through the giant ship like a missile. Once the ship had all but completely exploded, the figure flew around and hovered in the sky for a second.

Captain Marvel had joined the fight.

She flew down and landed next to Peter, who was laying on the ground under a chunk of debris, hugging the gauntlet close to his chest. He stood up, blood and dirt covered his face. “Hi… I’m Peter Parker…” he squeaked shyly.

“Hey, Peter Parker. Got something for me?” Captain Marvel smirked.

Peter scrambled to his feet, exhausted. He handed the gauntlet over. “I don't know how you're gonna get through all that.”

They both looked as the remaining members of Thanos’ army charged toward them. “Don’t worry,” The Machine flew down, “She's got help.”

Captain Marvel started flying towards the van with the Gauntlet, flying past enemies and going through enemy blockades that were in her way with ease. Thanos, seeing this, starts running at Captain Marvel, but is stopped by The Machine, who blasts him backward.

Captain Marvel makes her way past Thanos, but he throws the remainder of his double sword at the van, destroying it and the quantum realm tunnel, the power from the quantum tunnel exploding threw Captain Marvel backward and caused her to lose her grip on the Gauntlet, which falls to the ground.

Tony blasts one of Thanos' men aside and sees the Gauntlet. He runs to get it but sees Thanos going for it too, so he tries to tackle him. Thanos smacks him away, knocking him out.

Thor arrives and attempts to pin Thanos' arm down with his hammer and ax, with assistance from Captain America and John who is blasting away at Thanos with one of his reactors. But Thanos overpowers them all and knocks them all unconscious.

He picks up the Gauntlet, but suddenly, The Machine arrives, punching away at Thanos while he is holding the Gauntlet in a tight grip. It keeps hitting him, but Thanos grabs it by the arm and flings the new bot away easily.

Thanos puts on the gauntlet, radiation from the stones traveling throughout his body as he tries to snap, but Captain Marvel flies in again, and grabs the gauntlet on his hand, stopping his fingers from snapping.

Thanos tries to headbutt her, but it does nothing. Just as Captain Marvel was gaining the upper hand, rising up in the air and forcing Thanos to his knees with her power, he pulls the Power Stone out of the Gauntlet and uses it in his free hand to punch Captain Marvel away.

Thanos puts the Power Stone back into the Gauntlet, screaming from the force of radiation coursing through him, until Tony comes to and jumps back into the fight, making one last attack on Thanos, desperately trying to pull the Gauntlet off before Thanos punches him away.

“I am…” Thanos starts, his hand raising to snap. “Inevitable.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks as always to M_E_Lover for the encouragement and beta work!

Thanos snaps his fingers to activate the gauntlet, but nothing happens except a metallic "clink." He turns his hand around and sees the Infinity Stones are missing.

He looks in awe to Tony who now has the stones in his own gauntlet, the power of handling all six infinity stones coursing through him, to Thanos' utter shock.

“And I...am...” Tony glares at the Mad Titan, “Iron Man.”

Tony snaps his fingers with a loud "CLANG" and a blinding flash of white.

Rocket, who is firing at one of Thanos’ large ships, ducks away before it devours him, but the ship crumbles into ash. The Black Order also suddenly starts crumbling to ash. T'Challa and Starlord look around in shock; Steve looks on in relief and exhaustion, knowing that they had finally won.

Thanos, in horror, looks around and sees his entire army disintegrating into nothingness. He looks at Steve, who just glares at him. Drained from it all, Thanos sits down on a large piece of rubble and mourns, before slowly being erased from existence himself. 

Tony staggers over to a piece of debris and falls to his knees, then over on his back. Leaning up against the large rock, the entire right side of his body was horribly injured, looking much like The Hulk’s arm had after he’d snapped.

Rhodey flies in and goes up to Tony to see his longtime colleague and best friend’s life fading away. Tony tries to smile at him. Rhodey bows his head with a sad smile, knowing the damage is irreversible; he’s done for. A tear slowly drips down his face.

Peter Parker soon flies in and sees Tony collapsed on the ground.

“Mr. Stark?” He runs up to his fallen mentor. Tears start to form in his eyes from the reality of what he sees. “Hey... Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? It's Peter. We won. Mr. Stark... We won.” His voice is shaky and broken. “Mr. Stark. We won and you did it, sir. You did it.”

Tony is too injured to speak. Peter breaks down and throws his arms around him.

“I’m sorry… Tony…” he sobs.

John flies in, Harold being carried firmly in his grasp and released gently to the ground.

Harold limps up to his old friend. Rhodey gently leads Peter away to grieve.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y?” Harold asks, a lump in his throat.

_‘Life functions critical.’_

“No. You don’t get to do this,” Harold says crossly. “Think you can save the universe and then leave us to clean up the mess? I don’t think so.”

Tony smiles sadly at Harold with tears in his eyes.

“Especially because I was just starting to like you again,” Harold smirks desolately as tears start to form in the corners of his eyes.

Everyone stood by and watched their leader fade away. The Machine started to walk forward slowly and knelt down next to his creators, gently taking Tony’s hand.

Harold looked at the being beside him with wide eyes, unsure of what he was doing. Then it plucked the mind stone from Tony’s gauntlet and held it to its forehead. A spot opened upright in the middle, accepting the stone. The red and blue bot then put its hands at Tony’s side, and suddenly something started to happen.

“What…” Harold gasped.

Tony’s wounds seemed to start to heal. The stone was glowing bright, and surges of sparkling light were flowing out from his hands and into Tony’s body. Before Harold could grasp onto reality, Tony looked perfectly fine.

The blackened, charred wounds were completely gone and his eyes opened. “I knew you always had a soft spot for me, Harry,” Tony winked at his friend.

\----

“You’re sure you don’t want to keep the suit?” Tony asked John one last time. “Because I can modify it a little. Make it more breathable, less noticeable as your prancing around the streets.”

John chuckled, “No thanks. If I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”

Tony put his hands up, “Alright… alright…”

Harold walked out of the Building with Steve and joined the two, “Stop being a bad influence, Tony. Walking around the city in an Iron Man suit doesn’t exactly scream subtle,” Harold admonished his friend.

Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes. He shook John’s hand, “Make sure Harold comes and visits, eh?”

“I’ll try,” John smirked.

“Pleasure to meet you, John. You’ve got a great partner here,” Steve motioned to Harold.

“I know I do,” the ex-op smiled at Harold.

Tony walked up to Harold and held out his hand, “Don’t forget to write, Harold darling.”

Harold rolled his eyes and put his hand out to shake Tony’s and got pulled in for a hug, taking him off guard. Harold patted Tony’s back,” Can’t… breathe,” he teased and Tony let go.

Smiling, they said their goodbyes and John and Harold got in their car. A brand new custom Acura NSX courtesy of Tony. 

“So that’s the new Machine, eh?” John asked, his eyes trained on the red, blue, and black android looking being now standing behind their car with Tony and Steve.

“Parts of it. The best parts,” Harold replied. “We still have our Machine. Copies of its code were uploaded into the matrix of that… superbot…” Harold looked for the right word. “Time to go home…” Harold sighed and turned the key in the ignition, more than grateful to have his partner back safe.

John’s phone started to ring and he fished it out of his pocket. “Uh oh…” he groaned.

“What?” Harold asked, pulling the car out onto the road.

“Hello?” John said as he answered his phone.

“Where the _hell _are you?” Harold heard Shaw’s distinctive voice on the other end of the line.

John looked at Harold, “It’s a _long _story…” he chuckled.


End file.
